The full trailer for Hit Man is here, and I am going to DIE MAD about Netflix buying this movie. As a reminder, Hit Man is GREAT, a true audience movie, wildly funny, thrilling, sexy, just a great time all around to see with a crowd. Like it’s DESIGNED for a crowd; the script, co-written by star Glen Powell and director Richard Linklater, has actual applause breaks built in for key reveals and punchlines. They KNEW what they were doing with this movie, they were making it for a theatrical audience—consistent with Powell’s ambition to be a capital-letter Movie Star—and then…they sold it to Netflix.

 

The trailer hits the high notes, showing off Powell slipping in and out of various hit man personas as he plays an undercover operative who sets up people trying to commit murder in sting operations. Then he meets a sexy lady, played by Adria Arjona, who wants her husband killed and things spiral out of control. Anyone But You wasn’t even GOOD, and it made over $200 million in box office. Fresh off that success, Hit Man is a no-brainer, it could have been the sleeper hit of the summer, an old-fashioned sexy rom-com that puts butts in seats.

 

But Sarah! No one knew about Anyone But You when Hit Man was making the rounds last fall! True. But everyone knew Glen Powell had been in successful Netflix rom-coms, they knew that appeal existed. Plus, he was the breakout star of Top Gun: Maverick. And while Devotion, a film he produced and starred in didn’t perform as well, there were still signs that the guy can deliver, and Hit Man is good enough to roll those dice. But the studios didn’t. I heard the offers were low, low enough to signal fear and unenthusiasm for the challenge of marketing an R-rated rom-com (which again, just looks stupid after Anyone But You). Netflix, who has a relationship with Powell and knows EXACTLY what he can deliver to them, audience-wise, came in with just over $20 million. So Linklater and Powell punched out.

Fine. It’s business. Sometimes business is dirty and disappointing. But Jesus CHRIST I wish more people would bet on themselves in show business. That’s a piece of advice I got once, when I got towed into Robert Evans’ house along with my boss while interning. Evans was physically a shadow of himself following a stroke in the 90s, but he still had this cutting gaze that went right through you. He said precisely five words to me: Always bet on yourself, kid.

 

It sounds facile, but those words really stuck with me, especially coming from a man who survived everything he did in Hollywood. When Lainey had an open call for people to write for her site, those words pushed me to submit. Every time I have bet on myself, it has paid off, in one way or another. But it seems like Hollywood has become so precarious that everyone is frozen, afraid to take risks even on things they believe in. It was clear to me at TIFF that Linklater knew he had a crowd pleaser on his hands, but still, he sold it to Netflix, guaranteeing crowds would never see it, not together, anyway.

Sure, it’s getting a two-week theatrical run beginning May 24 before hitting Netflix on June 7. But that will be Netflix’s standard limited release, not a wide release like Hit Man deserves. So please, check your local listings and see Hit Man in a theater if you can. It is SO fun and being in a room full of other people laughing at the same things and holding their breath through the same confrontations only makes it better. This is a movie that will play diminished in the silence of your living room but soars with an audience. Netflix has zero interest in nurturing a theatrical audience, but some people WILL be able to see Hit Man that way, and I promise, it is WORTH it.